A Household Name
It all started a couple of days ago. I grabbed my gun, newly bought, and headed down to my basement. It would finally be over. This would be my last try, and the one that would actually work. I was going to commit suicide—I chose my basement because it was comfortable to me. Even though it was my own house I lived in, I mostly inhabited the basement. There, I was free from responsibility, the passage of time, sunrise and sunset... All things a twenty-three year old should worry about. I was in my haven, my palace. I could surf the web, play games, watch TV (yes, I had a TV down there, too), sleep (yep, and a bed), and just tell the rest of the world to fuck off. But, as it usually does for people who try to live their own way, reality fucked me over. I didn't work, not anymore, I didn't have family money to fall back on, and I didn't have a diploma. The world was a cold, dead place, and I couldn't handle dealing with it. I had to get out. My girlfriend had just left me, my house was being foreclosed, and I didn't have a friend in the world. Not even any pets to love me. Hell, they couldn't ''love me. I was someone different in this world, and I knew I was the only one like me. That is, until I saw what was on the news. I flipped on my TV when I got down to the basement. I thought, well, If I was gonna die and no one was going to find me for a long, ''long time, as no one cared about me, I might as well suck some money from the electric company by leaving my TV on and, well, not being able to pay for it. I was gonna be dead after all. Looking back, I'm not even sure if that would even work. I didn't think it through. And, on top of that—hell, I just thought of this—my electricity was gonna be shut down soon anyway, since I stopped paying—er—since my ex stopped paying. Like I said, I didn't think it through. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. I had turned on both my lightbulb down there as well as the TV. My light bathed everything in a red color. I preferred it that way. I flipped on the TV, not even realizing it was on a news station. I put the gun in my mouth. It's an eight-bullet-per-clip handgun, and that's about all I could tell you about it. I closed my eyes, poised to pull the trigger. I had no emotion at that point, not a single tear came out of me. My muscles in my hand were ready—just straining to pull the trigger. Then I heard it. "Twenty-six dead in a school shooting," said the anchorwoman on the news. I opened my eyes to watch it. They kept talking, and I slowly lowered my gun. I learned it was a shooting at an elementary school. A fucking elementary school. ''And then... the guy's face was all over the place. Then his name. I put my gun down and now watched with rapt attention. I had my TV on for a couple of days straight on news networks, and I was surfing the web for anything I could find about what happened. Everywhere I went, there was his face and his name. ''Everywhere. '' The more I read about the guy, the more I realized he was like me. ''There was actually someone like me. He became a goal for me. If I was gonna die, people were gonna fucking remember me. They'd see my face every goddamn day for a week, or even a fucking month or more, if I could help it. And I'd be known forever. I was going to take it to an extreme. They thought he was extreme? What he did was the worst ever? I could top it. I fucking knew I could. About a billion things raced through my head—things I could do to make me the worst monster in history. Things that couldn't possibly ''be topped. I couldn't sleep the whole night, I was excited just thinking about it. I had finally come up with something, and that damn smile wouldn't leave my face. I went to the place where I bought my gun shortly after that, and bought some more clips. I had to be ready. I was grinning ear to ear the whole way down to my location as I rode on the bus. People saw my smile, and they smiled back... They wouldn't be smiling tonight. I was gonna make the news, baby. So, here I am, typing this all out on my phone as a last goodbye before I step inside and change history and twist minds forever. These fuckers at the... You know what? I'll let you figure out where I am once it hits the news. Let's just say it'll make everyone forget about all the shootings in the past, because everyone, ''everyone will only remember this one. And you may call me a monster, that's fine. But you know what? I call it a household name. Category:Mental Illness Category:Television